Monday Mixtape, Vol. 87
I tend to write in hyperbole, not by intention but usually by excitement. There's so much great music being made that the in the moment greatness feels more everlasting that it ultimately is. Call me a sucker for the moment, I suppose.
So I've been thinking about this song I just heard, "Solar Pilgrim," by Twain. It is certainly one of my favorite songs this year, and the song that moved my heartstrings more than any other this year. But I think it's more than that.
I call it this decade's "Hallelujah," probably the most revered and famous cover by the late great legend, Jeff Buckley (who was covering Leonard Cohen).
Twain's masterpiece is a song about the times, the corruption of money over the soul, and the few (if any) who will come and live with Twain (or whoever he sings as, possibly Jesus) in a life without the trappings of riches. "Soul or Pilgrim" seems to ask what our sacred place is? Is it money? Fame? Power? Or is it to grow our soul into something beautiful?
We all wander through life, many of us searching for terrible things that provide nothing to our souls (just read the papers, any day). But there are still those, like the person in this song, that try to keep their souls as the focus of the pilgrimage. He hopes there are others, but as he closes the song, he can't find any, and pleads for God to come take him away:
Walk right by me
I’ll be glad to have you in my life a while
There’s always room for one more
Eat and Drink!
Lay down with the beauties of this earthly world
I think that they want to lay down with you
In the morning
Getting stronger, getting richer by the day
That’s the way that it was meant to be
They won’t tell you
But there was once a time when we all lived that way
That was before the money came raining down on us
Now: my soul is a pilgrim
And my body is barely keeping up
And one day, it won’t keep up any more
And on that day
I’ll go sailing through the clouds (crowds)
Through the stars
On a Solar Highway to my God
But till then
I’m still healthy
Sitting in the morning sun
And no one around to sit down next to me
They all know I’ve got that kind of soul
They know and run away
'Cuz they all know that kind of soul don’t stay long
Oh my god, come take me
I just cannot wait another day
Oh my God! Come take me away!
Everything about this song is gorgeous. The twangy electric guitar that starts, then the lullaby-like trebled guitar that gives way to Twain's angelic voice. The crescendo that comes together as Twain asks God to take him away. This is one of my favorite songs I've heard in years. I'm truly blown away by it, and I hope it makes your week or even year! Even cooler the guy is from Franklin County, VA, only a stones throw from Virginia Tech.
In a few years, will I look back on this post, and think, "I really overdid it on this one. Me and my hyperbole." Or will this song forever float in my mind of all-timers, a track I'll remember decades later when I find another track to anoint? Hallelujah.
Time will tell.